Interview with Khaldor

Hi Khaldor, last week's Assembly cast was quite a ride. Suddenly the numbers on your German stream exploded when English speaking viewers from all over the world were tuning in. Can you give us a quick recap how the cast went from your point of view and your reaction when you saw the international viewer numbers and the reception on TL?

It's always a little bit hard to estimate the number of viewers beforehand, casting the Assembly Winter I thought it would probably result in about 5.000 people watching the stream at peak times. The cast went pretty smooth, we got a lot of good games and as I knew most of the german players quite well they always made sure to wait for us before they started the game. At some point I just realized, that the number of viewers was increasing quite rapidly and I suddenly got tons of messages on BNet as well as on IRC with people telling me to check out the comments on TL When I first heard that I thought that basically a couple of people surfing on TL found my stream in the stream list and commentated on it. When I checked out the thread regarding the Assembly LAN I was stunned to find out that more than 20 pages about my stream had been posted already, mostly by non German speaking people. I was baffled to be honest ^^ Most of the comments were positive and the TL crowd really seemed to enjoy the stream quite a lot. It was late already though and after another 2 or 3 games we were done for the day. So I read the rest of the comments when I came back home and from then on I tried to keep the English viewers up to date by switching languages every now and then. The reception of the TL users was therefore quite a surprise and I was really happy when I saw all those comments, thanks again everybody for tuning in and for making the weekend quite memorable for me!

Khaldor is definitely a known name on TL now - but not many know who is behind this ID. Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about yourself.

Well, my whole story would probably bore everybody to death within seconds, so I'll stick to the basics I'm 29 years old and studied Economics in Mannheim (which is right next to Heidelberg which a couple of people might actually know). After I finished by studies I went to Australia for a year, spending most of the time either in Melbourne or traveling. I came back in the summer of 2010 and moved to Berlin after a while.

Regarding my online "career" I started playing online with Diablo 2, skipped SC:BW nearly completely (except for LANs with close friends) due to my bad internet connection back then and after WarCraft III got released I focused on Blizzard's Fantasy RTS. I got involved in the community work pretty soon, starting out as webmaster of one of the German community websites and due to a coincidence I got the opportunity to shoutcast a tournament back when shoutcasts were quite rare and only occurred about once every one or two weeks. People apparently liked my style, so I started to commentate more frequently, got involved with the whole WC3 scene more closely which led to me managing the WarCraft III team of 4Kings and after wards Mousesports. Due to my studies time was pretty scarce and I concentrated on shoutcasting which resulted in leaving Mousesports and focusing on commentating. My personal highlight so far was the World Cyber Games 2008, where I was the official commentator onsite. It was quite an experience and definitely the highlight of my time as a commentator. In addition I got to hang out with Tasteless quite a lot which was as funny as it gets Judging by the amount of beer he was able to drink he definitely should be German!



What are your plans for SC2, will you do mostly casting? Would you take over managing an SC2 team again? Something else?

Well, right now I'm managing MyStarCraft.de which is a German StarCraft II Community Website focusing on eSports. Besides that I'm mostly casting at the moment. I'm not too sure if I would manage a StarCraft II team again. To be honest it's an interesting question as I didn't think about managing a team again for a long time. I actually think I would manage a team again but it'd depend to a large plan on the clan.
For now casting will be a large part of my activities in StarCraft II. I'm releasing quite a few VODs on my YouTube-Channel as well in addition to the live streams. So that already takes up quite a lot of time. I started commentating a couple of matches in English due to the demand on TL but I'm not too sure yet whether my English commentating is really good enough to pursue this in the future.

Are you still involved in WC3? What is your take on the future of WC3 and will you be switching completely to SC2 (if you haven't already)?

I'm not involved in WarCraft III anymore at all. I stopped commentating games roughly half a year before I went to Australia as I had to concentrate more on my studies and after I left Germany I had other things on my mind. I had a great time with WarCraft III and sometimes I miss for example the heroes but I don't even have an installation of the game on my computer. I look forward to WarCraft IV but for now StarCraft II is the only game I plan to play and commentate. It's really different to WarCraft III but I simply love how the esports scene and the game itself are evolving right now. There's so much going on, it's just great to be part of it

Are you still in contact with the WC3 players from back in the days? Do you know what they are up to and if we can expect them to switch to SC2? Who in particular do you see doing well in SC2 in the future?

Well actually a lot of former WarCraft III players already switched to StarCraft II, as for example HasuObs, iNSoLeNCE, DeMuslim and XLord. Most of the ones I just mentioned are German as you might have noticed, but there are also plenty of international WarCraft III players that made the adjustment towards StarCraft II. Tod and Grubby are playing SC2 now as well and I expect especially the latter to improve quite a lot over the course of the next few weeks. I'm still in contact with most of them and it's actually kinda nice to see familiar faces in the lineups of teams such as MouseSports and EG



Did you follow korean SC:BW progaming before SC2? You were known for a very energetic, "koreanesque" commentating style.

I have to admit, that I didn't follow SC:BW very closely. I'm familiar with most of the big names though and enjoyed Tasteless GomTV streams quite a lot. I'd make sure to get up in the morning at the weekend in order to watch the GomTV matches with a couple of friends of mine and therefore had at least a basic understanding of the SC:BW scene. Occasionally we would listen to the Korean commentators as well, therefore I know why people are sometimes comparing my style of commentating to that of Korean commentators (although I obviously don't understand a single word they say xD). I can't judge their understanding of the game but I appreciate commentators that make me feel excited about a match, although in my opinion three commentators (as in most Korean productions I've seen so far) is overdoing it a little bit.

Do or did you ever have to fake excitement and enthusiasm?

Hm, that's actually a pretty good question. In general I don't think I ever "faked" enthusiasm but I would be lying if I pretended to be equally psyched about all the games. To me it's pretty important who's playing, which nations are participating in a match, which races face each other and also whether the match takes place in one of the final stages of a tournament for example. Esport is a huge part of my life and I wouldn't be casting if I didn't have a basic level of excitement for what I do. Therefore I'm able to get excited about games that seem trivial in comparison to others. But I reckon that a lot of my enthusiasm is built up over the course of a tournament for example as not the game on its own, but also surrounding factors are playing a more important role and adding to the whole atmosphere of a game. This can be a late stage of a tournament, the last German player fighting for survival or simply a third match between two players battling each other and fighting for supremacy

How good are you as a player? How important is it to be competent at the game to be a good caster in your opinion?

I would consider myself a decent player. I'm ranked in the diamond league right now which is to a great part attributed to the fact that I didn't have the time to play more than about 5 games since the master league patch was published. I'm occasionally playing some team games but mainly to distract myself. The last few weeks I've been casting a lot and didn't have the time to seriously put some effort and thought into playing 1on1 ladder games again. In my opinion you don't have to be a great player in order to be a good commentator, although I think the better you are the more insights you can address in your casts and therefore improve it. It's not a necessity to be a good player but it's definitely helpful. Which is also why I'm going to start playing a lot more again soon. I just bought an NA Bnet Account in order to stream the FX Open and some other tournaments being hosted on the North American Server. Right now the idea is to start playing random with that account as my European account is a Zerg only account so far I think it's possible for me to advance to the master league once I start playing on a regular basis again, although I don't see myself become a player strong enough to compete in tournaments or aiming for the top ranks.
After all I'm a commentator in the first place and not trying to become a progamer

So we will hear more English casts from you then after all?

After the Assembly Stream I really wasn't too sure whether my English would be good enough to perform adequately in a live streaming situation. I think it's a lot harder to provide a decent English stream (as a non-native speaker) when you are more of an enthusiastic caster compared to a more analytical one. If you are lacking for words in the heat of a battle it sounds kinda stupid and quite often the battle, or even the game, might be over before you were able to rephrase the situation. The positive feedback throughout the last few days (especially in regards to my English streams at the TL Open #14) on the other hand gave me a lot of confidence and as there are apparently a lot of people that would like me to cast more tournaments in English I'll do exactly that. I won't give up on the German though There were already a couple of admins of various events that asked me if I'd like to provide an English stream to an event that already has a live stream in German. So basically being able to cast in two languages will furthermore give me more streaming opportunities as well

Great to hear that, looking forward to more casts! What is your opinion on the proclaimed boom of Western esports, particularly in North America? Do you think with the recent developments the US will become a if not the important esports country again?

In WarCraft III NA didn’t play a role at all. Apparently the game was of nearly no interest to most Americans, whereas StarCraft II receives quite a lot of attention. Having a WarCraft III background I was quite surprised about how well the US was doing in regards to esports. Especially with the MGL and NASL there are some really interesting developments going on right now. In general I'm still on the opinion, that the esport infrastructure in Europe (especially in Germany) is still superior to that in the US, at least for the time being. If the NASL is actually living up to the expectations this might change really quickly though. To me it's actually a very exciting situation as there are so many things happening right now that could really lift esport to a whole new level.

OK enough ESPORTS talk. Who is your favorite player and why?

Although I know very little about him, never met him and probably never will I have to say it's ChitaPrime at the moment. He's not even a Zerg player and most people seem to dislike him due to his cheese plays and cannon rushes. The thing is that I really enjoy his games, you never know what will happen next and his games a really entertaining! He might not be the best player and will probably not be able to compete with the elite but his games are fun to watch and he's not afraid of using unusual strategies. Besides him there are a lot of players that I really enjoy watching as for example Mana and a couple of lesser known Zergs as for example DeathAngel. It would be easy just to name a couple of famous players but in the end I find myself rooting quite often not for the player that plays best, but for the player that entertains me the most

What was the best game you have watched so far? What was the best game you have casted?

The best game I've seen so far would probably be HayprO vs. Slayers_Mills which I also casted as a VOD. It's an intense ZvT on Metalopolis where both players just keep attacking each other without ever pausing. The game goes on for about an hour and in the end there's not a mineral spot left on the whole map. That game was really great and gave me goosebumps The same is probably true about iNSoLeNCE's game vs. Naugrim on Xel'Naga Caverns at the Assembly Lan, but a lot of the excitement of that game was due to the circumstances of the match. iNSoLeNCE losing the first map, about to lose the second one as well and therefore short of being eliminated out of the tournament and all of that



Great games indeed! Alright Khaldor, let's wrap this up. One last question for our readers in the area: Are we going to get the chance to see you in a RL event soon (as a caster or otherwise)?

I certainly hope so Right now there's no event that I'm sure of attending. I was asked only yesterday though whether I would be interested to commentate at a LAN that's taking place in a couple of months though. It's not sure whether it will work out though, therefore I can't give you any details but as soon as I get the chance to commentate at a big event I'll definitely take it And if nothing else there's always the GamesCom in August which I will attend for sure!

OK good to hear that. Well, Khaldor thank you very much for taking the time. Any word for the fans? Any shoutouts?

I would like to thank all the people on TeamLiquid for their support, my staff at MyStarCraft.de for their great work and effort and also use the opportunity to greet iNSoLeNCE and Mana, as well as Rascel, a good friend of mine! And of course I'd like to thank you as well for the interview!